An integrated emergency response decision support system for enhancing workers’ safety in offshore oil & gas operations

Project Information

OffshoreMuster

Grant agreement ID: 878950

DOI

10.3030/878950

Project closed

EC signature date 5 November 2019

Start date 1 December 2019

End date 28 February 2022

Funded under

• Horizon 2020 Framework Programme

Total cost

€ 2 892 375,00

EU contribution

€ 2 246 287,50

Coordinated by

SIGNALGENERIX LIMITED
Cyprus

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - OffshoreMuster (An integrated emergency response decision support system for enhancing workers’ safety in offshore oil & gas operations)

Reporting period: 2021-03-01 to 2022-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Oil & Gas (O&G) offshore platforms are accounted as industrial “towns”, ranked among the most hazardous working environments. Emergency situations in such environments are highly unpredictable and characterized by pressure of time, ambiguous facts on disaster escalation and rapidly changing conditions. OffshoreMuster system brings together the latest technological advancements in real-time personnel tracking and electronic mustering, complementing the existing Health, Safety and Environment (H&S) procedures, by enabling situation awareness over personnel location and status which is a key factor supporting better decision-making towards zero casualty in emergency situations.
The system’s underlying technology, developed after years of dedicated research and development efforts, consists of specialised low-power wireless wearable devices, customised gateways and a secure backbone network infrastructure feeding a modular intelligent decision support software system with real-time streams of data for processing and visualisation of information relevant to personnel situation assessment.
Lightweight ubiquitous devices in the form of a bracelet or embedded in the uniform are assigned to People on Board (PoB) and periodically transmit real-time location and status awareness data. A network of dedicated gateways, which are placed at specific locations on the offshore O&G asset, connected through the infrastructure’s ethernet, relay data to a central decision support system. Specialised localisation algorithms and data analytics tools, process the data to estimate the personnel positions and PoB status information, interactively visualising in real-time location awareness, incident escalation and alerting, which can significantly reduce response time and speed up a safe evacuation procedure.
OffshoreMuster system can be adjusted to standard O&G H&S processes, as they have been adapted by a client, allowing additional computer-aided decision support features, like the real-time observation of the fire-fighting team response status, the concentration of people in specific areas, restricted areas monitoring, instant alerting or the last-known position of a missing person.
Computer-aided decision support combined with ultra-low power autonomous IoT technologies systems play a significant role in controlling, managing, and preventing critical incidents in harsh working environments, contributing into minimisation of accidents occurrence in O&G environments. OffshoreMuster system has been validated in full-scale deployment on an actual O&G asset emulating real drills.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the first period (Dec 19 – Feb 21) of the OffshoreMuster project, the main focus was around the technical adaptations/optimizations for the OffshoreMuster system in order to be able to meet the new requirements introduced for the offshore O&G environment and preparing/initiating the system for demonstration/validation and commercialization activities which were scheduled for the second project period (March 21 – Feb 22).
Within the timeframe of the project, the OffshoreMuster partners collaborated smoothly and jointly managed to meet all the projects’ milestones:
• Gather and analyze customer business needs and transform them into functional requirements(MS1)
• Finalize all system adaptations (hardware and software) and release of a commercially ready OffshoreMuster product(MS2)
• Successfully test the OSM system in laboratory environment (SG-premises trials)
• Successfully validate and demonstrate OSM system in industrial environment (Industrial environment pilots)(MS3)
• Complete an effective marketing campaign and raise awareness for potential clients (posts, Ads & videos)
• Participate and present at EMC2021 and ADIPEC2021 exhibitions.
• Prepare a business model for OffshoreMuster
• Present OffshoreMuster in a whitepaper at Petroleum Economist.
• Present OffshoreMuster in a sponsored letter at Petroleum Economist.
• Present OffshoreMuster in a Webcast co-hosted by World Oil and Petroleum Economist.
• Comply with relevant standards and regulations(MS4)
• Grant trademarks for OffshoreMuster logo and wordmark and submit two preliminary patent applications (OffshoreMuster overall architecture and OffshoreMuster Long-range localisation system)
• Engage in commercial discussions with several companies in the offshore O&G industry(MS5)
With the commercial system ready and the experience gained with the OffshoreMuster project, the consortium formed a Joint Venture (OffshoreMuster_LTD), which will continue the exploitation and commercialization activities of the OffshoreMuster product (project’s outcome). The successful laboratory environment tests along with the results of the system’s validation in an industrial environment have provided the necessary boost to commercialization activities and have created a lot of interest from the industry. OffshoreMuster_LTD continues the commercialization activities and the consortium is dedicated to bringing OffshoreMuster product to market.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

It is well known that working on an offshore O&G industry is considered as one of the most dangerous jobs. The remote location, isolation, adverse weather conditions, the operation of complex and heavy machinery often with 12-hour shifts are demanding both physically and mentally. There have been several platform accidents resulting in large number of fatalities, severe injuries, massive pollution on the environment and huge economic losses.
Many technologies have been adopted by the offshore O&G sector with the aim to limit the accident’s risk, however, as long as assets continue to be manned, offshore operations will continue to have safety of the personnel as a priority. Companies determined to reduce risks for offshore personnel are using all the tools at their disposal, but without better resources, making appreciable improvements to offshore safety processes is challenging.
Accidents in hazardous working environments can be disastrous, and even less serious incidents can escalate into stressful situations. Every second counts, and decision-making must be swift and accurate to avoid subjecting offshore personnel to potentially harmful conditions. The best way to manage risks is to know the location of everyone on board at all times and to use that information to quickly address situations that could lead to accidents or loss of life.
The OffshoreMuster safety management system improves personnel safety through locational awareness. It is an integrated, emergency response, decision support system that revolutionizes personnel safety through real-time localization and tracking, incident detection, automated mustering and area evacuation monitoring. OffshoreMuster is a holistic solution which provides computer-aided decision support for emergency situations, combining real-time situational awareness of persons on board (PoB) and incident-response teams (firefighters, safety crew, etc.), incident escalation management, head-counting and electronic mustering, and evacuation management through a unified system.
Significant benefits for OffshoreMuster system are expected to be gained through the adoption of the OffshoreMuster personnel management tool. The administrator/operator of the offshore asset, apart from the administration of the OffshoreMuster system will be able to have a high-level monitoring and management of the personnel that operates on the asset.

OffshoreMuster Logo